Ineos said on Oct. 25 it would restart all production units at Grangemouth "immediately," after shuttering them on Oct. 15 at the height of its long-running dispute with the trade union Unite. This includes the site's refinery, its two crackers and two polyolefins plants.

The decision, said to have been made by Ineos chairman Jim Ratcliffe personally, came after the union in a second vote - with the threat of closure looming - accepted all of the terms of management's "survival plan" it had rejected days earlier. After the first vote, Ineos had said it would close the site permanently and move to appoint a liquidator.

The group's definition of immediately was unclear, however, as it had previously said it would need at least three weeks for a restart.

Along with the union's about-face, the UK national and Scottish regional governments sweetened the deal for the now Swiss-based group, agreeing to provide some of the funding for an ethane terminal Ineos has said it needs to be competitive with US rivals benefiting from shale gas feedstock. The terminal's cost was previously pegged at £300 million.

The survival plan accepted by the workforce stipulates that there will be no strikes at Grangemouth for three years and that employees will also accept a three-year wage freeze and reduced pension benefits.

The UK government said it would approve Ineos' application for a £125m loan toward the terminal's construction, and the Scottish government - which had stressed that Grangemouth was crucial to Scotland's economy - pledged to support the group's application for a £9m grant.

In a statement, Ratcliffe called his decision to reopen the site "a victory for common sense. Unite advised employees to reject change and vote for closure. Thank goodness people finally came to their senses. Grangemouth now has a great future."

The Ineos chairman is quoted by UK media as also saying that the dispute "highlights the parlous state of labor relations in the UK and the government's manufacturing policy," adding that, "you'd never have a situation like this in Germany."

The Grangemouth refinery has a capacity of 210,000 barrels per year, the two crackers are said to turn out 1 million t of ethylene and 400,000 of propylene. The two polyolefins facilities have annual nameplate capacity for 330,000 t of LLDPE and 285,000 t of PP. Altogether, the site employs around 1,400 people.